Chapter 26 · Frontier Lord - Chapter 26: The Blood-Debt List

Ava didn't sleep.

She sat at the table in the main hall, the old file her father had dropped spread open like a body on a slab. The lantern flame jumped every time the wind hit the shutters. Rain stood by the door, arms crossed, watching her read. He hadn't said a word since she'd opened it an hour ago.

She turned another page. Her fingers left smudges on the brittle paper.

"They kept records," she said finally. Her voice came out flat. "Every name. Every village. Every child."

Rain moved closer. He didn't ask to see it. He just waited.

Ava pushed the page toward him anyway. "My great-grandfather didn't just fight the northern clans. He erased one. Completely."

Rain's jaw tightened as he scanned the list. It was written in neat, administrative script—the kind you'd use for tax rolls or grain inventories. Except this wasn't grain.

"Frostbrook clan," he read aloud. "Two hundred fourteen dead. Forty-three captured. Bloodline carriers executed on site." He stopped. Looked at her. "Ava."

"Keep going."

He didn't want to. She could see it in the way his hand hovered over the page. But he did.

"Survivors sold south as indentured labor.